From ecological and industrial perspectives, Anoxybacillus flavithermus species that lives in a thermophilic environment, are extremely important bacteria due to their potential in producing highly interesting compounds and enzymes. In order to understand the genetic makeup of these thermophiles, we have performed a comparative genomics study of 12 genome-sequenced strains of Anoxybacillus flavithermus bacteria. The genome size of Anoxybacillus flavithermus strains is from 2.5Mbp to 3.7Mbp and on average containing a low percentage of G + C genomic content (˜41.9%). We show that, on the basis of the total gene-content, Anoxybacillus flavithermus strains are grouped in three different subgroups. In the future, it would be interesting to explore these strain subgroups to further understand the lifestyle of thermophilic bacteria. Focussing on the Anoxybacillus flavithermus AK1 strain, which was isolated from a Hot Spring in Saudi Arabia and closely related to A. flavithermus NBRC strain, we identified a unique list of 75 genes specific to AK1 strain, of which 63 of them have homologs in other taxonomically related species. We speculate that these AK1-specific genes might be resulted due to horizontal gene transfer from other bacteria in order to adapt to the extreme environmental conditions. Moreover, we predicted three potential secondary metabolite gene clusters in the AK1 strain that further need to be experimentally characterised. Genomic annotation, secondary metabolite gene clusters and outcomes of the strain genomic comparisons from this study would be the basis for the strain-specific mathematical model for exploiting the metabolism for the industrial and ecological applications.

中文翻译：

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嗜热细菌 Anoxybacillus flavithermus AK1 与其他菌株的基因组比较

从生态和工业的角度来看，生活在嗜热环境中的黄热厌氧芽孢杆菌属极其重要的细菌，因为它们有可能产生非常有趣的化合物和酶。为了了解这些嗜热菌的基因组成，我们对 12 种基因组测序的黄热厌氧杆菌细菌进行了比较基因组学研究。Anoxybacillus flavithermus 菌株的基因组大小为 2.5Mbp 至 3.7Mbp，平均包含低百分比的 G+C 基因组含量（~41.9%）。我们表明，根据总基因含量，黄热厌氧杆菌菌株分为三个不同的亚组。未来，探索这些菌株亚群以进一步了解嗜热细菌的生活方式将会很有趣。针对从沙特阿拉伯的一个温泉中分离出的与 A. flavithermus NBRC 菌株密切相关的 Anoxybacillus flavithermus AK1 菌株，我们鉴定了 AK1 菌株特异性的 75 个基因的独特列表，其中 63 个与其他基因有同源性。分类学上相关的物种。我们推测这些 AK1 特异性基因可能是由于其他细菌为适应极端环境条件而进行的水平基因转移。此外，我们预测了 AK1 菌株中三个潜在的次级代谢物基因簇，它们需要进一步进行实验表征。基因组注释，